Optimizing a Virtualized Data Center

Many data centers extensively use Virtual Machines (VMs), which provide the flexibility to move workload among physical servers. VMs can be placed to maximize application performance, power efficiency, or even fault tolerance. However, VMs are typically repositioned without considering network topology, congestion, or traffic routes. In this paper, the authors show a system, Virtue, which enables the comparison of different algorithms for VM placement and network routing at the scale of an entire data center.